


Pink in the Night

by Dredfulhapiness



Category: Spider-Man (Comicverse), Spider-Man - All Media Types
Genre: Canon Compliant, F/F, Marvel 616 Compliant, Yeah uh I'm sorry for this one
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-24
Updated: 2020-09-24
Packaged: 2021-03-07 22:20:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,511
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26634997
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dredfulhapiness/pseuds/Dredfulhapiness
Summary: For every time MJ has wanted to kiss Gwen, they’ve kissed thirty times.It isn’t like their other relationships and it never will be. They only know each other behind closed doors, with legs hitched up on hips and mouths pressed together.They can never be tight-knit Times Square couples. No sunlit lovers posted up under cafe umbrellas. But they’re still them, tangled in sheets, prone on the fire escape, textbooks passed and hands brushed.Or, the one where MJ has to say goodbye
Relationships: Gwen Stacy/Mary Jane Watson
Comments: 23
Kudos: 42





	Pink in the Night

The first time MJ kisses Gwen is under a comically large bauble of mistletoe. It’s snowing, and Gwen’s cheeks are adorably red when MJ tucks her scarf under her chin. There’s a moment, right before MJ kisses her, where Gwen’s teeth scraped against her bottom lip and MJ thinks, vividly, _I’m about to fall in love with Gwen Stacy._ And then she does.

They pressed chapped lips together, and Harry _whoops,_ and a few people clap, and Gwen is quick to pull her scarf up and MJ is suspiciously fast about assuring bystanders, _we’re just friends._

It’s just a joke, and then it was over. Harry snakes his hand around MJ’s waist, and Peter steals Gwen’s hat and holds it far above her head, and they leave the mistletoe far behind them.

—

Gwen is asleep on MJ’s couch, one hand holding in place the textbook open on her chest, one leg hitched over the arm of the couch. There’s a half-eaten burrito on the coffee table. Peter glances over at her a lot from where they’re all seated at the kitchen table. The way he looks at her is so gentle it makes MJ’s heart seize so she says, devilishly,

“I’ve got markers.”

Peter’s eyes light up. “Really?”

“Lord,” Harry says.

“In the drawer under the coffee pot.”

“Don’t,” Harry says, but he makes no move to stop them when turn around holding markers by the fistful.

“Oh, come on,” MJ says, holding a marker out to him. “Didn’t she totally whip your ass on that last test?”

“She destroyed the curve,” Peter reminds.

It’s enough to break him. He sighs and grabs a marker. “If she gets mad, I’m bailing. I’ll say you held me at gunpoint.”

“I’m sure she’ll believe that,” MJ says.

They crouch over her. Peter leans over the back of the couch, Harry kneels on the ground, MJ perches on the edge of the cushion and contorts to reach Gwen’s face.

They doodle. Boobs, and dicks, and the sun wearing sunglasses. Gwen startles right as MJ is in the middle of drawing in a goatee. She shoots up, and for the briefest moment their noses touch, and then they’re just staring.

Gwen looks around her, at the three of them. “You’re children,” she says, her voice still heavy with sleep. “All of you— this is washable, right?”

Peter turns the marker over to investigate and winces.

Faster than MJ thought possible, Gwen whacks him upside the head with a throw pillow.

—

MJ is good at tiptoeing around in her own life, turning corner just before the ghosts in her mind can find her, locking doors behind herself everywhere she goes.

She does it more often, now, since December.

Gwen hooks their elbows together and MJ turns another key.

Legs splayed over each other on the couch, shared clothes, borrowed lipsticks.

This is life: a corridor of security doors building up behind her.

Despite that, despite everything, MJ _could_ live like this, because it’s Gwen. Because Gwen once spent the better part of a night tutoring MJ on introductory physics and threw her arms around MJ’s neck when she’d walked away from the exam with a B-. Because Gwen showed up at MJ’s apartment once with a kitten that reeked of garbage and held it out to MJ like an offering. Because Gwen knows that rubbing alcohol will take Sharpie off of skin, but she’ll still wait to remove it until after she’s thoroughly kicked their asses in a pillow fight.

—

The second time MJ kisses Gwen is on her fire escape. They’re sitting, legs dangling, passing a bottle of dollar store wine between them. Summer is on its way out the door, and the sky is cotton candy perfection.

They’re talking about Gwen’s breakup, about missed dates, and forgotten birthdays, and perpetual lateness. There is a truth on the tip of MJ’s tongue, but she swallows it down with the wine. Instead, she says, like it’s an excuse, and because she doesn’t tell secrets that aren’t hers, _he’s always been that way,_ and Gwen hums. It doesn’t matter, MJ supposes, when Gwen has her entire life scheduled out.

There is another truth in MJ’s mouth, this one is not so easy to wash away. It is stuffed deep into keyholes, rusted silver.

Gwen says, “Boys,” dry, and MJ echoes, “Boys” and they are alone on her fire escape. The city below them is humming, and when Gwen hands over the bottle their fingers brush. There is a ring of purple on Gwen’s lips. Her nails are chipped, her sleeves are uneven on her shoulders. MJ takes a long drink.

When they kiss, it’s MJ’s fault. It’s her hand that flattens on the grate below them, her body that bends at the waist, her lips that touch Gwen’s.

But. But, but, but. It’s Gwen’s hand that steadies her by the shoulder, Gwen’s hand on her knee, Gwen’s lips moving against hers.

It’s months before they talk about it again.

—

For every time MJ has wanted to kiss Gwen, they’ve kissed thirty times.

It isn’t like their other relationships and it never will be. They only know each other behind closed doors, with legs hitched up on hips and mouths pressed together.

They can never be tight-knit Times Square couples. No sunlit lovers posted up under cafe umbrellas. But they’re still them, tangled in sheets, prone on the fire escape, textbooks passed and hands brushed.

They leave room for the other’s clothes in their dressers, keep mugs in the cabinet and souvenirs on the credenza and photographs on the fridge. Now, MJ sleeps on the right side of the bed because Gwen prefers the left.

They hang out with the guys and keep their distance, put arms around shoulders sparingly. Peter tells a joke and Gwen laughs and MJ forces her eyes not to linger on her lips.

She’s still locking doors, she’s just given someone the spare key.

Gwen catches her eye sometimes, squeezes her hand under the table, leans in and whispers a joke.

It’s marginally easier this way.

—

Three hours before Gwen dies, MJ offers to walk her home.

“We can stop for pizza on the way,” She offers.

Gwen rubs at her eyes, deepens the bruise forming under them. They’ve both been awake for way too long. “I’ve got a test tomorrow. Call you after?”

MJ nods. She’s relieved— her eyelids are heavy, all she really wants is to collapse onto her bed and sleep. “You’re gonna kill it.”

She moves to put a hand on Gwen’s cheek and falters. Rethinks. They’re standing outside of a hospital, in broad daylight, so she puts it on Gwen’s shoulder instead. “Call me if you need anything.”

“Mhm.”

They don’t kiss. MJ regrets that the most.

—

MJ has an opportunity to blame Peter and she doesn’t take it. They face off in the living room, limbs curled into themselves like dead bugs, or broken skeletons.

_Or snapped spines, or bent textbooks, or chamomile tea bags that have caused rhytides on napkins._

She tells him, “I loved her too, you know,” and he scoffs.

Their fights are always like this, in doorways. Battlefields comprised of living room furniture, heaving scathing remarks over muddied rugs. This is the worst one yet, and Harry isn’t here to step between them. He’s off, confined to a bed in the room of a hospital, and it’s just the two of them, angry and scared, and they yell some more until a door is slammed and MJ is alone on the other side of it.

—

There is so much of MJ that reminds her of Gwen that sometimes it hurts to look in the mirror. She keeps her lipstick in her bedside drawer, keeps a sweater in her closet, shoves photographs into boxes because she’s not sure how she can just keep them around.

The world has collapsed, and there’s only one person she wants to talk to about it.

MJ doesn’t purge her apartment with malice, she does it out of desperation. She changes the bedsheets save for Gwen’s pillow, scrubs the carpet until spilled nail polish rises out of it. She changes out the air fresheners, she compartmentalizes her life until it feels the way it did _before._

She unlocks doors and retraces steps and locks them again just so she isn’t standing in an empty room with a corpse. That’s just no way to live.

—

It gets better eventually. Things always do. By the time Harry dies, Peter and MJ are on speaking terms again. They get through that heartbreak together and pretend it pieces together all the shattered bits from before.

When they move in together, Peter finds the pictures.

He’s a photographer and he knows. How couldn’t he? The ink of the polaroids is made up of love.

He holds them up, blinking rapidly, and says, “MJ, I’m… Fuck, Em, I’m so sorry.”

She runs her fingers through his hair, presses their foreheads together.

“I miss her,” She says, and he swallows.

“I do, too.”

They sigh together.

**Author's Note:**

> Feel free to come talk to me on Tumblr [@dredfulhapiness](https://dredfulhapiness.tumblr.com)


End file.
